The Angry Birds Movie (2016) Only Makes You More Angry – Movie Review

It’s a safe assumption when you say that a movie based on a once popular mobile game is probably going to end up being pretty dumb. It turns out our gut feelings are right once in awhile. I don’t exactly consider patience one of my virtues by any stretch and I had hoped with that in mind I could relate to an angry bird named Red, voiced by Jason Sudeikis, but instead I was given an animated film about a phone app that had far too many sex jokes for a “kid’s” film among other things. Again, if you had any expectations for this film, just realize that they are pointless because damn…

One of the big balls of hope movie goers held for the film was that it would surprise us like Lord & Miller’s The Lego Movie, but in reality, this feels like one of those animated straight to DVD Lego movies. I thought the voice cast was inspired enough for something as ludicrous as an Angry Birds movie, but the lines fall flat and the type of humor each character owns is redundant and lackluster. For most movies, you want to be drawn into the main character, not be deterred of them for their run-time, and Red is just not a likable bird. Obviously his personality is to be a pissed off flightless bird on an island of obnoxiously happy other birds, but the fact I was feeling as annoyed as him did not allow the type of movie going experience one would normally hope for.

Back to the sex jokes and “humor” of the film. It’s shocking in the bad way and not overly subtle either. I’m not sure this a film for kids to be seeing if they are young and parents should be advised of this. It seems unapologetic about blunt dick jokes as well as jokes about birth that come off as infinitely tasteless and lazily written. They attempt to make you feel sympathetic for Red and I’m sure some of you will, but when I think of well realized animated characters, it’s due to their unique personalities and backstories, not because of overdrawn cliches to their story arc, but what would you expect from a movie like this. I will give the film this, it’s animated a style that would have been more fun to watch had the film itself been compelling in nature.

As far as controversy regarding these white-supremacists who supposedly claimed enjoyed the film immensely, don’t hurt yourselves over that garbage. I can see where some people will look at the film as having an “anti-immigrants” message, but that’s reading into something that is far less intelligent than that. The bottom should not be that racists may or not be supporting this movie because they can have it anyways, it’s a dumb film that needed to have been shelved early on and put on as straight VOD film. It’s only 90 minutes long, but even that feels like it could rival that of Cleopatra (1963) in droll, boring, and disrespectful representation of certain types of people. This is a poorly realized movie that was clearly made up as they went along without any real vision beyond fan service and raunchy humor being musts for the film to come to life and they did one of those things sort of well, but that’s not really a compliment either.